The Worst of Road Signs

[Central Avenue]

How dare the City of Westerville besmirch my good name with their compressed type!



Not that their mixed-case street blades are much better:




Note that the overheight initial caps are used only on the proper name, not the direction or suffix--implying that it's a deliberate decision rather than merely incompetent sign layout.

Even their backlit overhead signs aren't safe from the horrors of compressed type:


Seriously, Series D exists. Use it.

[vtk]

Thanks for such a thorough photographic complaint about a thing which also bothers me!  Now if only we knew who works for Westerville who both can make it right and gives a rat's ass...

Hmm, that came off sounding sarcastic, but please take it at face value, because I meant it sincerely, despite the cynical pessimism at the end.

[Jim]

At I-75 Exit 101 in Naples, Florida, at the west end of Alligator Alley.

[CentralCAroadgeek]

Worst greenout ever.

I-15 north in Victorville.

[national highway 1]

^Hopefully that will be replaced with a better sign as part of the exit numbering program.

[Scott5114]

I-95 south in N.C. - not sure what the font is used on the exit tab, but it certainly is not standard!

Definitely some manner of Arial, most likely Arial Black.

[formulanone]

At I-75 Exit 101 in Naples, Florida, at the west end of Alligator Alley.

There's a lot of that Lousy Use of Capital Letters in South Florida lately. Palm Beach County was particularly hit hard since 2011.

[Takumi]

That happened every now and then here in Virginia, but one positive thing I can say about Clearview taking over is that it doesn't seem to happen anymore.

[Alps]

There's a lot of that Lousy Use of Capital Letters in South Florida lately. Palm Beach County was particularly hit hard since 2011.

It happens because fonts are often specified as, say 16"/12". What that's supposed to mean is 16" upper case letters and the accompanying lower case letters, which happen to be 12" tall. But what that gets interpreted as is 16" upper case letters and the lower case letter set for 12" uppers, which means you actually are putting 16"/9" out there. That's why I always specify fonts as just plain 16", because with today's use of CAD programs for lettering, you'll always get the right letters output.

[OracleUsr]

I prefer raised caps, but I'm glad South Carolina isn't using Clearview as prolifically as I had feared (I HATE CLEARVIEW!!)

[Scott5114]

At I-75 Exit 101 in Naples, Florida, at the west end of Alligator Alley.

There's a lot of that Lousy Use of Capital Letters in South Florida lately. Palm Beach County was particularly hit hard since 2011.

The same thing happens sometimes in Kansas. I had theorized that it was because KDOT ran out of the right size of demountable copy letters, and sometimes had to do this to get a sign out the door quickly, but J.N. Winkler explained what was really going on with these signs. The exit direction sign at I-635 southbound and Kansas Avenue in Kansas City, KS is like this, and even includes a compressed Helvetica K-32 shield, to boot.

[Central Avenue]

Worst greenout ever.

I-15 north in Victorville.

Okay, yeah, I'm a self-proclaimed Helvetica fangirl and even I have to admit that looks hideous. It's so light that I can't imagine it's very legible from a distance, either.

There's a lot of that Lousy Use of Capital Letters in South Florida lately. Palm Beach County was particularly hit hard since 2011.

It happens because fonts are often specified as, say 16"/12". What that's supposed to mean is 16" upper case letters and the accompanying lower case letters, which happen to be 12" tall. But what that gets interpreted as is 16" upper case letters and the lower case letter set for 12" uppers, which means you actually are putting 16"/9" out there. That's why I always specify fonts as just plain 16", because with today's use of CAD programs for lettering, you'll always get the right letters output.

Agreed. Maybe the 16"/12" thing made sense back when signs had to be laid out manually, but in today's digital world, well, odds are the computer knows better than you do when it comes to sizing lettering.

Either way, it would be nice if future MUTCD revisions at least added text clarifying the meaning of the lettering sizes. (Assuming there isn't such language already; I can't be bothered to check because it's 6 AM and I'm lazy.)

[Special K]

Either way, it would be nice if future MUTCD revisions at least added text clarifying the meaning of the lettering sizes. (Assuming there isn't such language already; I can't be bothered to check because it's 6 AM and I'm lazy.)

MUTCD currently references the "Standard Highway Signs and Markings" book, which in turn describes the standard measurement of lettering.

[agentsteel53]

can you link us to JNW's explanation of why Kansas uses Silly Caps?

those are even worse than California's old 2/3 ratio caps, which looked generally pretty good.  the Series D uppercase/Series EM lowercase thing was pretty unusual, though. 



some of those caps are D, others are EM.  the "Pasadena" is an obvious blackout there.  this may as well be the "worst of road signs" even though the historical value of that photo is immense.

[Scott5114]

That one gets a pass because in 1950-whatever we didn't really expect anyone to know how to sign freeways at all.

The thread you seek is https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=1127.0

[kphoger]

Speaking of upper- and lowercase letters...

[1995hoo]

Passed this new sign this morning in Fairfax City, Virginia. I know my way around so the sign doesn't do much for me, but I found myself thinking that it has way too much stuff crammed into way too small an area to be of use to the average driver unfamiliar with the area. This is a 640 x 480 piece of a much larger image–I copied out this section to make the sign more visible. Essentially they're trying to tell you that thru traffic should bear to the right up ahead, then cut a left onto North Street. (When I was growing up this was irrelevant because the two streets shown in vertical orientation on this sign were paired one-way streets, but sometime within the past ten years they made them both two-way.)

So to me this is an example of a well-intentioned sign that was poorly executed.

[Takumi]

It almost looks like the numbers in the shields are green as well, something I have seen in Virginia before.

[1995hoo]

It almost looks like the numbers in the shields are green as well, something I have seen in Virginia before.

I pulled up the full-size image on my screen but couldn't tell. Just a bit too grainy.

Incidentally, that "DO NOT BLOCK INTERSECTION" sign reminds me that I saw one a little further west a few minutes later that said "DO NOT BLOCK THE INTERSECTION." Never seen one before with that "THE." Unfortunately, by the time I noticed it I didn't have time to take a picture.

[agentsteel53]

I believe all the dark text is black - but it's really, really tough to tell at that resolution.

[Billy F 1988]

http://goo.gl/maps/Lbjcm

Does this BGS near Rockport, IL need that much dead space? There has to be at least 12 to 24 feet of dead space. "ALL TRAFFIC MUST EXIT" is just a wee bit wordy.

[Brandon]

http://goo.gl/maps/Lbjcm

Does this BGS near Rockford, IL need that much dead space? There has to be at least 12 to 24 feet of dead space. "ALL TRAFFIC MUST EXIT" is just a wee bit wordy.

No, and it's not even needed.  Now, this is an honest-to-goodness case of IDiOT.  Using a poorly thought out sign in a location that such sign isn't even needed as you cannot go any other way but to follow the ramp.

[Takumi]

It doesn't look like there's any future extension of that route, either.

[vtk]

I had assumed that there was previously a freeway stub here.  Google Earth doesn't go back beyond 1998 here, and I'm too lazy to get the old USGS quads, so I can't confirm or disconfirm that hypothesis at the moment.  It's obvious that, even if the stub were never constructed in the first place, there was a highway planned to extend north from this interchange. 

Anyway, the existence of this sign would make sense if the stub physically existed, though it could be designed better.  But in the non-hypothetical present reality, it's just pointless.

[theline]

http://goo.gl/maps/Lbjcm

Zoom out. There are clearly remnants of two other loop ramps, which were graded, if not actually paved. There was at some time a plan to complete a cloverleaf and continue the road to the north, though the structures now in the way would preclude that.